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February 16, 2015

Start-Up Grants at Ball State University

Start-Up Grants at
Ball State University

By:
Holly Rittenhouse

From
the revival of antiquated art forms to the intersection of theatre with social
justice, Ball State University’s Start-Up Program is jump-starting an
array of scholarly initiatives for first-year faculty members.

Ball
State’s internal grant Start-Up Program enables new faculty members to launch
their research, scholarly studies, and creative endeavors. Each award consists
of a competitive one-time grant, up to $3,000, which may be used to purchase
supplies, research-related items, and/or travel to conferences or workshops. Only
tenure-track faculty members in their first year of employment with Ball State are
eligible to apply.

Paper Animation: Reviving a Tradition

Bradley
Condie, Assistant Professor of Art, is using his Start-Up Grant Award to revive
a declining medium – 2D hand drawn animation. While working at Walt Disney
Feature Animation, Condie used this medium to animate scenes in popular Disney
films such as Brother Bear, Lilo and Stitch, Atlantis, Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Pocahontas.

Figure 1

Condie chooses to
revitalize this antiquated medium because it is distinctive from other methods.
“It offers a unique and specific experience that computer animation mediums do
not recreate. It forces you to be thoughtful when drawing, think spatially, and
be more creative as an animator,” says Condie. Other former Disney artists share
Condie’s mission to save this dying art and are working on a new paper
animation film called Hullabaloo.

Condie currently
teaches 2D animation classes at Ball State and recognized the need for proper supplies.
“Ball State has wonderful digital tools for me and the students to use but, I
[did] not have access to many of the antiquated tools and materials that one
generally uses in creating traditional hand drawn animation.” Using the
supplies purchased with the Start-Up Grant, Condie’s students are helping to
revive 2D hand drawn animation and carry on the tradition of this inimitable art
form.

Dr. Molly
Ferguson, Assistant Professor of English, is using her Start-Up Grant Award to
research contemporary theatre performances in Ireland. Ferguson will travel to
cities such as Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Belfast to study Irish plays as
expressions of shared traumas. “Today, emerging playwrights in Ireland are processing
collective traumas through initiating public dialogue about issues such as
racism, child abuse in the Church, and terrorism,” says Ferguson. “This type of
work is at the forefront of postcolonial studies today,” she says, “intersecting
national and cultural identity formation with social justice work.”

Ferguson
has attended Irish plays in the U.S. and England, but she knows that such art
forms lose their authenticity when removed from their home country. “Once they
leave Ireland their reception is culturally packaged and delivered for the
consumption of a ‘tourist’ audience” says Ferguson. “Viewing these plays at the
time of production and assessing their reception by audiences and reviewers
will add an important element to my research, for which I have thus far had to
rely on secondhand reports,” she says.

“I plan to explore my
interest in human rights and conflict resolution in Ireland today, to add
research to my claim that Ireland is at the forefront of objection to global
imperialism and violence, through the voices of its artists,” says Ferguson. Upon
her return, Ferguson plans to publish a journal article on her research and
teach an immersive learning course about conflict resolution in Ireland and
South Africa.